Edward Snowden - Traitor or Patriot?

[TallTom]

And I will also close my thoughts on the community I chose to leave. I saw trouble ahead for how we were going to get spotlighted. I will openly admit that I saw that it was heading towards political confrontation. Before 9/11 nobody questioned the very same things we did after 9/11. Why? Because there was no political capitol at stake. We handed Clinton Bin Laden on a platter. He knew where he was, all the Intel to prove that 9/11 was about to happen. A complete file of most of the key players. When and how they played into it. We knew what they were eating for every meal. We even knew most of the hijackers. Clinton chose to do nothing. Bush chose to do nothing when he took office. Although, he was taking interest as he saw it as a more realistic threat. That was the beginning of my frustration. We knew what was about to happen but it was not our decision to act on it outside of our job description.

Then 9/11 happened. And they pulled out all the stops and with a new found zeal said "Do what we have to do to stop this." Tried to make us responsible for lack of Intel. So we said, Keep everything. Destroy nothing. If they want a witch hunt we have to be ready for that fight. The politicians saw a whole new world of political capitol to be made and used. One week we answered to this guy the next week it was another and the next week yet another (Exaggerated to make a point). And each new person had a new way we were to proceed. Internally we made decisions to cover our own butts because crap was going to start rolling at us.

I fully support the U.S Constitution. I fully support holding everyone to that standard. In times of war, we do things that violate peoples rights. After Dec. 7, 1942 we en-turned all of the Japanese American citizens that lived in America. It wasn't right but it eliminated them as a potential enemy to us. 9/11 gave us a whole new enemy. I will not start a thread about Muslims because there are some very very fine Muslims living here in America. But there is also some Muslims that live here that support Jihad. Waiting for them to act is too late. But violating their rights is and was our internal constant struggle that we wrestled with. If these Muslims are doing nothing wrong, and someone finds out that we had drilled into their every move, we were in a no win outcome in the political world. Pre 9/11 and for about 2 years afterwords, we were so entrenched in stopping them that nobody questioned our methods. It was working. Internally if we tracked someone and they turned out clean, we destroyed their files. To protect them more than us. Then some folks with agendas decided to start saying, we want to review what you are doing. This is where I exited. I did so without a Snowden. I did do without a problem. My loyalty to the cause has not waned. Our ability to do it without getting our nutz cut off eventually is where I knew I was done.

As soon as Homeland Security and NSA was created, it was the beginning of the end to what had been effective and successful and quietly doing its job. That became a political agenda with many parties pissed off at the pieces of the pie they were not getting. Prior to that, we were a black program and every politician quietly went about letting us do our jobs and never bothered us. Not ashamed of what we did. I was growing ashamed at how it was going to be a circus going forward.

I could have pulled a Snowden. But that brings harm to the larger good of what he was part of accomplishing. And I sort of like living in freedom and not worrying about getting whacked.

 

[skydivr]

And as long as the focus remained, I think it might have worked. But now, the proverbial baby has been thrown out with the bathwater....

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

CNN says he's a traitor so I believe it. :stoopid:

 

[GNBRETT]

"Snowden DID try to report illegal activities to his boss, and to their superiors, he went up the chain of command and was basically told to shut up and just do it - so he took the only logical route left to someone in his position. He brought hard evidence of those activities - the activities Clapper DENIED - to the American people and our political representatives. snowden took the logical route".....

this above really demonstrate how out of touch you and many more our when dealing with sensitive information pertaining to national security. you are really clueless. scary to be honest.

did you stop to think of the damage this moron has done? you do realize that terrorist groups all over the planet are now changing their communication methods in response to the disclosures from this TRAITOR!!!!!!

wen bin Laden learned the NSA was monitoring his satellite telephone he switched to sending messages by courier now. how many terrorists do you think appreciate snowdens actions? if YOU support his decision to leak confidential national security information because he wanted to be "whistle blower" then your no better them he is and thats pathetic! he's the most pathetic american of our time. POS is what he is.

people like you have absolutely no earthly clue the damage he did to our governments ability to track communications of suspected terrorists. so go quote some former president when the terrorist attack goes off and body parts are laying in the road.... i'll bet you won't be quoting anyone then will you?

the moron ur defending compared the thousands of government workers to Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg!!!! this guy is unstable and dangerous! he had access to a LOT of sensitive information caused he was involved in moving sensitive data to more secure locations.

this TRAITOR went to two of the most repressive and technologically sophisticated countries on earth. (hong kong china and russia.) he states he never gave information to either government and that they never took anything from his laptops? really? yea..... ok u keep believing in fairy tales like that smh!!!!

china and russia spend billions of dollars conducting counterintelligence against the US each year. so an american citizen walks into these countries holding the keys to our most secret programs and both china and russia decline to look at his belongings to ensure he is not a double spy? of course their going to go thru his computer! thats a comical and preposterous proposition to think otherwise. even assuming that Snowden believes he had control of his computers at all times there is simply no way that china and russia would pass up an opportunity like that and not have a look.

thats F-en TREASON!!!! what don't you understand about that?

The NSA is corrupt.

Darrell Issa: James Clapper lied to Congress about NSA and should be fired

"Director Clapper continues to hold his position despite lying to Congress under oath about the existence of bulk data collection programs in March 2013," the letter reads. "Asking Director Clapper, and other federal intelligence officials who misrepresented programs to Congress and the courts, to report to you on needed reforms ... is not a credible solution."

If Congress cannot get the NSA to admit to, never mind reform, its illegal activities, what chance does an employee have?

Snowden DID try to report illegal activities to his boss, and to their superiors, he went up the chain of command and was basically told to shut up and just do it - so he took the only logical route left to someone in his position. He brought hard evidence of those activities - the activities Clapper DENIED - to the American people and our political representatives.





Illegal spying is not a national secret. It's not lost on me that the things we've been complaining about the chinese doing (spying, hacking networks, stealing company secrets, etc) are things we have been doing all along.

In a relationship, we call that projecting. A woman who is keeping her options open and flirting with other men, keeps a tight leash on her current boyfriend because she fears he is doing the same thing she is.



Have you done the math on how often and how likely that is to occur? You should be far more worried about hammers. A lot of people are dying from hammer blows to the head, far more than any terrorist threat in recorded history. Are you going to give up the rest of your rights to prevent all the other far more likely situations where loss of life is to occur? Why are you so focused on terrorists?





No, they are idiotic, and we are provoking them into doing more. Given the amount of time and money they have, their attacks have been feeble. Want to talk about Bin Laden? We trained him! Want to talk about Saddam? We helped keep him in power! This is just like watching a Spiderman movie. All the villains are self created.


Do you know what the world called America before the world wars? The great neutral. Know why? Because we didn't act like we do today.





The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000.

The odds of the same person being killed by a terrorist in the U.S is 1 in 20,000,000.

WHY AREN'T YOU TRYING TO STOP THE LIGHTNING ATTACKS?!?

PS: Don't bring up the foiled attacks. Once you omit the plots that were government sponsored (where we lure men we consider likely to turn then bust them for a plot we manufactured and paid for) the number of foiled plots drops by 70%.

PS 2: We were warned prior to 9/11 and didn't do anything with the information we had been given.

We were warned prior to the boston bombings, and did nothing with the information.

What makes you so sure we need more information when we never use what is available to us in actual plots that were carried out? What makes you so sure the information won't be abused? What makes you so sure we should be giving up more rights to prevent something that has almost zero chance of happening to anyone in the country?


“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Ben Franklin

 

[TallTom]

Most of this was already debated before implementation of the Patriot Act. Why are people so surprised our government did what it said it was going to do?

And thank you for bringing this up. Everybody overlooks that the Patriot Act is the legal engine used to accomplish what we did. Someone suggested with appall that if we don't like the laws we get them changed. They were changed in 2001 and later extended by the current Administration. So to suggest that we were violating the Constitution, might want to actually go back and read the Patriot Act. Which is still in affect. Extraordinary measures are taken in extraordinary times.